Barack Obama - awesome status confirmed

[Metaltastic]

Just watched his speech at the Notre Dame University graduation ceremony, and holy fuck what a guy. For those who don't know, Notre Dame is a VERY Catholic institution, and there were a fair amount of protests by students over the fact that a guy who is pro-choice was invited to give a speech there, and of course many Catholic extremists (Randall Terry ) jumped on the bandwagon to offer their support. This attracted a lot of media attention, and I followed it from before any of the speeches started (where they were interviewing people and covering the protests) until the end of his speech, and man what a change I went through.

In the beginning, they had interviews with the extremists, and the aforementioned Randall Terry (apparently one of the bigger shit-slinging pro-life activists), and my first response was "mother fuck this asshole, he's a piece of shit, Obama won, you lost, eat shit and die". But they then interviewed Father James Martin (just some random priest I think), and he was much more chilled out and said something to the effect of "we [Catholics] need to stop being so crazy and abrasive, cuz we're alienating people and making them think we're all fundamentalists", and that was the beginning of my calming down.

But then the president of Notre Dame introduced Obama as a guy who "knows we [Notre Dame] are pro-life, but didn't turn away from people he disagreed with". Obama came up, made his unbelievably convincing speech, and left me realizing that anger and hatred on the left side is no better than on the right, and we have to work together to get along with these people, rather than perpetually wishing they wouldn't exist.

I know I've been guilty of a fair bit of fundamentalist bashing on here (though I'm HARDLY the only one ), but I really am gonna start trying to calm it down a bit and realize that the ultimate goal should be understanding, rather than just winning over the competition. I know these aren't exactly groundbreaking concepts, but it's one of those situations where you can hear the same thing over and over again and think you understand it, but suddenly at one point it just really hits home: [faggyhippymode]Can't we all just get along?[/faggyhippymode]

And there were other tenets to his speech to, mainly that his ultimate goal is "a free market that is fair", and honestly, that's what it's all about. I hate these conservatives who think he's a socialist and is trying to devalue hard work; quite the contrary, all he wants (and all I want) is a fair playing field where hard HONEST work can actually pay off, rather than the amoral sociopathic fat cats winning by stepping on people to gather their wealth and power, and then consolidating it so the honest ones don't have a chance.

Honestly, how can people not love this guy? I'm sure the people who voted for McCain on here will come up with some policy or view of his that motivated them to vote towards the right in this past election, but to me, Obama has a brilliant, level-headed, TOLERANT head on his shoulders, and I am absolutely in a state of awe and bliss when I think that he's leading our country!

 

[Metaltastic]

And also on the note of tolerance/understanding, props to Ryan Harvey for teaching me that people who like deathcore and breakdowns can be ok guys after all

 

[Aaron Smith]

One of my my main issues with Obama is that he and his crew seem to understand very little about economics and sound money. It's all Keynesian economics and it's not a good approach. Also, Obama seems to view government as this big tool he possesses to redistribute wealth, and he is ALL about expanding the government, when in fact the truth of the matter is that when the government gets involved in an industry, it ultimately becomes more inefficient and bogged down. So from that standpoint, I am certainly not in a state of bliss and awe when I think about the fact that he's leading our country. A brilliant, level-headed, tolerant head on a president's shoulders is admirable, but unfortunately he doesn't have the economic know-how to get the country back on track, so to me it seems like he's little more than a pile of good intentions.

 

[Metaltastic]

Well we're fast approaching territory I know little about, but he said that he felt the current economic crisis was the result of "greed and short-term thinking", and that makes a fair amount of sense to me - when personal gain is at stake, people can't be expected to play fair; I liken it to a playground where the fat bully takes all the toys for himself and shoves the other kids' faces in the dirt, so it's up to the teacher(s) to enforce order. Some might say the strong survive and the weak die in a blatant display of naked social darwinism, but I say that those people are probably pretty damn unhappy and certainly not who I would consider "good people", and more importantly I think it's extremely rare that allowing people to focus only on advancing themselves is good for society as a whole!

I read an article in my Environmental Issues class called "The Tragedy of the Commons" that I found really enlightening. It described the view of Adam Smith (essentially the father of modern capitalism) that there is an "invisible hand" that guides people's personal ambitions and greed towards being good for society as a whole, and then promptly refutes that as being complete BS, which I agree with; people will take what they want, disregard and damage common property, and though the article was focused on environmental common property (such as polluting a body of water or ravaging a landscape with strip-mining or clear-cutting), I think the same can be applied to economic theory. Growth may be faster in an entirely de-regulated laissez-faire system, but all one needs to do is read Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" to see what the cost is. And some might argue that that still wasn't pure capitalism in that the government would break up strikes and other attempts by workers to fight for their rights, but there's a certain point where society needs to continue to function; it's not like we can treat it like Yellowstone Park, completely leaving it up to the course of nature, cuz while things may work themselves out in the end, god knows what the costs will be in the interim.

And to be clear, I'm no fucking communist, cuz I fully support people being rewarded proportionally for their hard work (and those who slack off not getting as much), but only as long as it's HONEST hard work, not hard work at fucking other people over for the sake of yourself.

 

[Aaron Smith]

And some might argue that that still wasn't pure capitalism in that the government would break up strikes and other attempts by workers to fight for their rights, but there's a certain point where society needs to continue to function; it's not like we can treat it like Yellowstone Park, completely leaving it up to the course of nature, cuz while things may work themselves out in the end, god knows what the costs will be in the interim.

The unfortunate thing about this, is when the government gets involved in something on what is supposed to be JUST a temporary basis, it virtually never works out that way and ends up being a bad thing in the long run. People get so used to the government helping or enforcing something, and it becomes hard to imagine it operating in any other way. So if you're trying to amp up government influence to prevent hard times in the interim, you will likely harm the country quite badly in the long run...which hardly sounds better than the alternative, where perhaps the interim will be very difficult, but in the long run the country will be back to a state of genuine growth and prosperity.

 

[iamandy]

you may find this interesting: http://www.obamadeception.net/

I think the full thing is on youtube aswell..

 

[aberration]

Why should anyone love any president? I hardly think that's the point...in fact, it seems to me that the more "likeable" a candidate is, the less he's worth. If he does good things for our country, then good on 'im. If not, who fucking cares if he's big and cuddly? He's useless.

 

[Metaltastic]

That seems awfully cynical dude, and I really don't see your logic there...

Andy, what you may not know is that Alex Jones is pretty widely regarded as a complete and utter loony, but fuck it, if he's right and Obama is spouting nothing but bullshit, then I'm still grateful that he's as good at it as he is, cuz today's speech really moved me!

And Aaron, yeah, I hear ya, but it seems pretty unlikely that the government would stand by and let things sort themselves out during those incredibly tumultuous times (while people are suffering, starving, possibly dying, production and society are grinding to a halt, etc.)

 

[iamandy]

Andy, what you may not know is that Alex Jones is pretty widely regarded as a complete and utter loony

Haha, i'm from the uk.. so being a utter loony is practically normal over here. But each to there own man!

 

[aberration]

Cynical, perhaps, yeah. Actions still speak louder than words in my opinion, and I'd much rather judge our president by what he does rather than what he says.

 

[Metaltastic]

No argument here, but who says it has to be one or the other? Plus, my feeling is the President is something of a figurehead, the public face of the country, but he's by no means the only one calling the shots, so I don't quite see why people are terrified that he doesn't have too much experience, as long as he is smart enough to surround himself with intelligent people that he trusts! (hey, it worked for JFK! Before...well, you know)

 

[Metal Overload]

Dude, He`s a robot, because of that he is so smart because they made him, and he talk what they write in a computer under the stage. hahaha

 

[RemoWilliams]

Sounds like it was a hell of a lot better than the graduation I just came from. I don't know if a highly Catholic graduation would be worse, or one here in the Baptist bible belt.

Either way, people like him, hate him, or just mumble and bitch and moan and think they have the better ideas. I'd rather he try to do something then and at least talk about it, then sound like a the dumbass from the pass eight years.

 

[aberration]

'Tastic, you said in your first post that you're happy he's "leading our country", but now he's "not the only one calling the shots." I think you're more correct in your statement that he's a figurehead...indeed capable of doing great things, but perhaps unlikely to follow through because of concern over popularity polls. Whatever, I'm really not trying to start shit with you so I'll drink a beer if you do the same!
By the way, my college graduation back in the day was completely ruined by that stupid bitch Pelosi, who spent roughly 45 minutes stumping instead of acknowledging the accomplishments of the student body.

 

[Glenn Fricker]

The unfortunate thing about this, is when the government gets involved in something on what is supposed to be JUST a temporary basis, it virtually never works out that way and ends up being a bad thing in the long run

I'll respectfully disagree. I'm very happy to have a government run health care system in my country..... I wouldn't trust something that important to private corporations whose motivation is profit.

 

[aberration]

Yeah, but you don't have the American government, mate.

 

[drew_drummer]

Obama rules... I mean, look what he's doing in Afghanistan.....

. . .

 

[aberration]

Also, I just re-read your OP...did he actually say that he wants a free market that's fair? Fair to whom? A free market is not "fair", it is "free."

 

[Metaltastic]

'Tastic, you said in your first post that you're happy he's "leading our country", but now he's "not the only one calling the shots." I think you're more correct in your statement that he's a figurehead...indeed capable of doing great things, but perhaps unlikely to follow through because of concern over popularity polls. Whatever, I'm really not trying to start shit with you so I'll drink a beer if you do the same!

Haha, hear hear, though by "leading the country" I meant in his vision and goals, which the more experienced people that advise him will hopefully help him bring to reality!

 

[aberration]

Man, I walked into the kitchen to live up to my end, and I'm OUT OF BEER. THIS is a national emergency, I'm going to the store. Anybody want anything while I'm out?